This week’s Gender and Sexual Minorities Conference will have a teacher speak.
A Kutztown University professor is using art to advocate for the expansion of the term “motherhood” to include “LGBTQIA + communities”.
Art education Professor Leslie Sotomayor ( pictured ) will discuss questions about mothers at the public university’s annual Gender &, Sexual Minorities Conference, starting Wednesday.
Sotomayor’s display is titled,” Madres Radicales: Queering Art &, Motherhood”. According to the event information, it revolves around an art show of the same title that she and many other “artivists” created in Texas during the summer.
” Through the art show, Madres Radicales, we sought to expand standard stories about madres/mothering as an activity, an embodied experience that transcends private domestic places &, re-frames under-valued tips by imagining &, creating new reports”, the description states.
It continues:
Queering ( Marcus 2005 ) the theme for this art exhibition by expanding terminology of motherhood as it connects to LGBTQIA + communities, racial identities, gender expressions, surviving oppressions, straddling socio-economic statuses, citizenship, &, cultural memory, we asked, Who is a madre/mother? How do Madres operate? What is their position in our areas? Societies? How is a mother/madre dramatic? What does a dramatic brunette look like? …
As we explore how allyship and the arts can serve as venues for tolerance and performer agency, this talk addresses larger societal issues that are important to inclusivity and diversity in the arts. In this art exhibition, we used self-knowledge production as agents to create queer creative acts through artivism to support community-building efforts ( Deepwell, 2018 ).
The museum involved Sotomayor and more than 20 other musicians, including “protest administrators, engaging art, musicians, writers, &, drag players”, according to the information.
Over the summer, the museum stirred up discussion in Lubbock, Texas, The Daily Caller reported:
In a Facebook post on July 6, 2024, Kim Gonzalez, communications co-chair of the Lubbock NAACP, stated that performers for a” Madres Radicales” drag show at the art trail were last minute instructed to “perform OUT of drag.”
Two videos of men dancing provocatively while wearing move clothing while some kids are present are included in the post.
The Charles Adams Studio Project ( CASP) hosted the drag show. According to an official request for the show posted by the director, Leslie C. Sotomayor II, the” theme for this museum is entangled with the expanding nomenclature of motherhood as it connects to LGBTQIA + areas”, among different left-wing groups.
At the conference this week in Pennsylvania, Professor Sotomayor’s talk will include art activists ‘ “issues with censorship”.
Discussions about transgender athletes and the November election, meditation and yoga, and workshops on building healthy relationships are other topics at the conference.
MORE: Dept. of Ed. funds LGBT teen’ affirmation’ study
IMAGE: Leslie Sotomayor/Instagram
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